With rapid development of mobile terminals, more and more convenient services can be provided to people by the mobile terminals and the life of people is made much easier. Currently, China Mobile launches a Qinqingtong service (family member positioning service), which provides good service and convenience to people for supporting elders or raising kids.
The service objects of the family member positioning service are mainly elders and kids. Usually, the parents of the kids or the children of the elders are positioning initiators, and the elders and the kids are people to be positioned. A positioning initiator can regularly query the location of a person to be positioned by way of short messages, Web (Web, network and Internet), wireless application protocol (WAP), voice and so on in real time, and query and obtain a movement track of the person to be positioned and surrounding information about the location of the person to be positioned by way of Web, WAP, multimedia messages and so on. When the location of the person to be positioned exceeds a preset range, the positioning initiator can be notified by way of short message alert. The positioning initiator can also obtain a route track, including a travelling route or a bus line, etc., between the positioning initiator himself and the person to be positioned according to the real-time location of the positioning initiator.
A guardian (the positioning initiator) positions the location of an elder or a kid using a customized terminal of the family member positioning service to obtain the movement track of the elder or the kid, and can be alarmed when movement of the elder or the kid exceeds the preset range and so on. This service can obtain relevant information about the elder or the kid such as location and so on timely and effectively and give the elder or the kid emergent help and care.
Currently, the positioned terminal required by the family member positioning service is mainly a positioning terminal of a global positioning system (GPS) which can realize a positioning function or a cell identity (Cell ID) positioning terminal. The GPS positioning terminal can realize high positioning precision; however, the positioning precision realized by the Cell ID positioning terminal is rather low.
However, the family member positioning service launched currently has the following three defects.
(1) The positioning information about the positioned terminal is reported frequently, which generates a large amount of network traffic. After the positioning service is opened, the positioned terminal has to position it own location continuously and actively report the same to a family member positioning service platform for storage and processing, which will generate much network data traffic.
(2) A service operation of fixed regional alarm is adopted. After the positioning service is opened, the guardian can log into the family member positioning service platform to set the range of regional alarm, and if the positioned terminal exceeds this regional range, then alarm information is sent to the guardian actively for prompt. If the guardian and the positioned terminal exceed the range of the regional alarm together, alarm prompt will also be performed, and such design is inappropriate.
(3) A specially customized mobile terminal is required. Current family member positioning service specifications definitely require this service to have a specially customized mobile terminal: a GPS positioning terminal or a Cell ID positioning terminal. When using a specially customized mobile terminal, the user has to pay additionally, and for the operators, it is not convenient for the wide application of the service.